Since we first announced World of Warcraft Classic, we’ve seen questions about spell batching. While we never really eliminated spell batching in WoW, we did change how (and how often) we process batches of actions coming from players, so you’re less likely to notice that processing in today’s game. We’ve been working to ensure that in WoW Classic, the gameplay of activating spells and effects will not differ from the experience of playing original WoW.
It was relatively common in the original game to see a warrior Pummel a mage who simultaneously and successfully Polymorphed the warrior. The mage suffered Pummel damage but no spell-school lock, because the mage didn’t get interrupted. This could seem paradoxical, but it could happen because the Pummel and Polymorph were both in the same batch, and were both valid actions at the start of the batch. For the most part, things like that don’t happen in modern WoW, but they still can. We’ve made improvements to batch frequency, and the game is much more responsive than it used to be. Still, if you manage to get both a Pummel and a Polymorph into a tiny processing window in modern WoW, you’ll experience the same behavior as in original WoW.
As with many other areas of WoW Classic, authenticity is our primary concern. It used to be the norm that combat flow and PvP balance were defined and tuned in a game where spell messages were resolved less frequently. There was a single game loop that processed all messages sent and received every server tick. Nowadays, the game processes multiple loops for messages of differing priorities. Spell casts are high priority, and have been for a long time.
For WoW Classic, we’re moving spell casts to a low-priority loop that will cause them to be processed at the frequency that best fits how the game actually played in version 1.12. Two mages will be able to Polymorph each other somewhat reliably, resulting in two sheep nervously pacing around at range. Two warriors will be able to Charge one another, and the end result will be both warriors standing stunned in each other’s original location.
We think it’ll be fun to see those sorts of things happening again.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/spell-batching-in-classic/137118
Its happening guys!
One of the best updates to see, in my opinion. This helps ensure we'll be getting authentic PvP which is extremely important for to maintain the authenticity of Classic to mirror 1.12, like they state. I'm so happy how much they're listening to the community on these issues!
Man, I really don’t want to speak too soon with Blizzard’s history but things are looking up. Good shit.
This is great news
I really didn't think they would do it, but they did. I'm becoming more and more confident in Blizzard, they really seem to be listening to us about Classic. Hype!
This is really nice to hear. These are the small things that made vanilla, vanilla.
This is crazy territory. Spell batching is ..... Its so small on the scale of things that matter. None of the vanilla private servers ever got spell batching working properly. Think about that.... And yet Blizzard is putting it in.
There goes the idea that the game won't be able to hold up in large raids..... current hardware plus the slower batch loops means raids should hold up much better than they did in vanilla man.
TripTryad-Reddit
I saw this comment in their thread regarding the subject and this really puts it into perspective how private servers aren't a good replication of how real Vanilla will play. I think this small step forward in what everyone needed/wanted from blizzard and many people have said that Old Blizzard is back. I sure hope so.
Spell-botching avoided.
Withdraw in orderly retreat, the day is won.
This is crazy territory. Spell batching is ..... Its so small on the scale of things that matter. None of the vanilla private servers ever got spell batching working properly. Think about that.... And yet Blizzard is putting it in.
There goes the idea that the game won't be able to hold up in large raids..... current hardware plus the slower batch loops means raids should hold up much better than they did in vanilla man.
TripTryad-Reddit
I saw this comment in their thread regarding the subject and this really puts it into perspective how private servers aren't a good replication of how real Vanilla will play. I think this small step forward in what everyone needed/wanted from blizzard and many people have said that Old Blizzard is back. I sure hope so.
Honestly it’s hard to put in perspective how many small things are so hard to fine tune to a perfect 100% replica and the amount of information available is vast yet limited. There are many underlying dynamics that go all but unnoticed by the majority of the population. Blizzard has a reference client. Not to take away from their work currently with classic, but there’s no reason to knock private servers for what they provided not being perfect; it gave many people an avenue to experience something to similar to what everyone is asking for in classic and that request being answered can undeniably largely be attributed to private server vanilla emulation’s success.
I’m high, /end rant.
Whomever is running the Classic team (if all goes accordingly) deserves to be recognized. Communication is key and is how a company should be run. Hoping the Activision oversight doesn't ruin anything..
Nice! I wish they will listen to those who want an earlier version of AV aswell.
This is crazy territory. Spell batching is ..... Its so small on the scale of things that matter. None of the vanilla private servers ever got spell batching working properly. Think about that.... And yet Blizzard is putting it in.
There goes the idea that the game won't be able to hold up in large raids..... current hardware plus the slower batch loops means raids should hold up much better than they did in vanilla man.
TripTryad-Reddit
I saw this comment in their thread regarding the subject and this really puts it into perspective how private servers aren't a good replication of how real Vanilla will play. I think this small step forward in what everyone needed/wanted from blizzard and many people have said that Old Blizzard is back. I sure hope so.
Honestly it’s hard to put in perspective how many small things are so hard to fine tune to a perfect 100% replica and the amount of information available is vast yet limited. There are many underlying dynamics that go all but unnoticed by the majority of the population. Blizzard has a reference client. Not to take away from their work currently with classic, but there’s no reason to knock private servers for what they provided not being perfect; it gave many people an avenue to experience something to similar to what everyone is asking for in classic and that request being answered can undeniably largely be attributed to private server vanilla emulation’s success.
I’m high, /end rant.
You're definitely right, without private servers Classic would probably not exist and mostly I was making the comparison due to the fact how it might affect world pvp where a mechanic like this is crucial to be consistent and mastered/played around.
I really hope they keep this level of communication as we roll towards release. Awesome news though, gives me some real hope that they actually have a grasp on things and won't screw it all up.
Does anyone with a good knowledge of spell batching know if it was affected by each player's latency?
I didn't much mind either way spell batching went, but I'm wondering if the European Private server players who fancied themselves to be YT vid pvp gods will be disappointed once there are no more high ping Americans to PvP against.
Does anyone with a good knowledge of spell batching know if it was affected by each player's latency?
I didn't much mind either way spell batching went, but I'm wondering if the European Private server players who fancied themselves to be YT vid pvp gods will be disappointed once there are no more high ping Americans to PvP against.
Technically yes it would, because each batch is server side and it can only add spells into the batch as the server receives it. So if batch one was 60ms in length and the next one was also 60ms (for a total of 120ms), a person in the EU who clicked a button would be in batch one (Expecting their ping being less than 60ms) and a person in the US (likely about 100ms) clicking a button would be in batch 2. If anything this probably makes it harder for an EU player as you have to account for their ping.
(In saying this I don't know if WoW reports MS as RTT or direct)